‘My relationship with Cairo is a very emotional and complex one. I love Cairo very much, with all its madness and absurdity; I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else. I can travel for weeks or even months but I always have to come back. Cairo to me is like a poem that makes you feel a thousand emotions at the same time. A poem that rips your heart out, but also soothes you. Breaks you and mends you. Bewilders you and inspires you. Kills you and makes you feel alive. The kind of poem that makes no sense at all and all the sense in the world. There is a constant longing engraved inside of me, and maybe projected into my work, for a Cairo I always dream of but could never have. Her streets are like fragments of memories of a lost love and at times serve as a constant reminder of everything beautiful, and everything that isn’t, once was, and that never was, one day will be.’
Hana Gamal is an Egyptian photographer and visual artist. She studied mass communication and media arts, and psychology at the American University in Cairo. She began photographing in 2011, and since then it became her principle creative vehicle. Hana’s visual approach is an anthropological/psychological one. Her work focuses on human connections, behaviour, and emotions, shedding light on the genuine humanity of everyday life. This pluralist approach in her photography stresses the complex nature of the photographic message. Her work has been recognised and featured in various international publications and exhibited in Cairo, Ireland and London.
Hana Gamal, Please scream inside your heart series, 2023
